Zelenskyy Sees Better Polling, May Seek Elections

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is making plans to seek reelection and restore elections in his country, as his ratings climbed after his contentious White House meeting with President Donald Trump, according to a new report.

The Economist, quoting Ukrainian government sources, reported Sunday that Zelenskyy called a meeting last week to discuss organizing a vote after a full ceasefire, expected by the American side in late April, is reached with Russia.

This means the Ukrainians could confirm an election before or by May 5, the deadline for a parliamentary vote on whether to extend martial law in the nation, which will expire on May 8.

After that, sources in the country say Zelenskyy is aiming for an election in the summer. Under Ukrainian law, at least 60 days are required for campaigning, putting the earliest election date in early July.

Other sources, though, say the campaign will have to go on for at least three months, the time election authorities have told the Ukrainian Parliament that is required to reconstitute voter lists at a time of war.

Zelensky’s re-election prospects have never been the issue. Simple fact is, the USA has a different constitutional setup to, well, more than half the developed world at least. Including in democracies far older than the USA. Here’s a breakdown of why that is:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/united-states-never-delayed-presidential-election-why-tricky

(Interesting to note, President Trump has himself mused upon the matter.) Barring two examples of the date being shifted, in the first 60 years following independence, the USA has never really addressed this SHORTCOMING in your electoral process (pretty much like how you still haven’t fixed a whole bunch of other issues like hanging chads, voter ID, or postal ballots, digital tampering...)

There are fair reasons why no national crisis has been serious enough to properly revisit these issues. Basically - the American civil war was nowhere near disruptive enough countrywide to move the date, you were too far away from the real fighting for WW2 to be a major disruption, and America’s never since had to try to run a Presidential election with a hostile power bombing its cities on a daily basis much less occupying ~20% of the country and BLOCKING the election. You have the luxury of not meeting an unplanned crisis big enough to disrupt things.

A Presidental election in Ukraine held on 25th May 2014 was originally meant to happen on 29 March 2015. Why? Because on 19th December 2013 Yanukovych indicated he wouldn’t be standing for re-election if he didn’t think he’d win (http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/182928.html), then he signed away Ukrainian sovereignty to Putin (without telling even consulting his Prime Minister). Within 3 months he had defected to Russia to the point of moving there and taking citizenship. Not only did this leave the Ukrainian Presidency vacant, the Azarov government had collapsed too.

Interim leadership had to be installed even if only to facilitate fresh elections, but of course, it being unelected meant it had no democratic legitimacy and so there was no option - elections HAD to be brought forward.

The question America should ask is, if a major incident caused the collapse or destruction of Congress AT THE EXACT SAME TIME AS TAKING POTUS OUT, does the Constitution prevent an emergency break-glass process to restore a functioning Congress AND restore the Presidency without waiting possibly 2+ years till the next scheduled elections? If it is *that* inflexible, the Founders made a boo-boo.

So, that’s the fundamental reason why it should be possible to bring an election date forward - if there is no functioning goverment AND no POTUS, you’d have no other option.

As for delaying the elections in wartime - again, we don’t have to look too far for precedents. The UK had a “government of national unity” (a coalition) during World War 2 due to the sheer impracticality of holding elections with millions of menfolk out of the country, but as soon as the war was declared over on 8th May 1945, almost the very first thing on the to-do list was reinstate elections - so they were held on Thursday 5th July 1945.

There is absolutely no basis to suppose the same wouldn’t have happened in Ukraine, as their constitutional postponement of elections is not significantly different to the delay in the UK during World War 2. It is not a failure of democracy because Zelensky couldnt’ unilaterally postpone elections. He needed the approval from not just his own party, but from opposition parties. Even now, his two biggest rivals have reiterated that they endorsed the postponement, and did so entirely within established Constitutional processes.

Finally - in 2014, Ukraine had Russia occupying Crimea, blocking participation there; and the DPR + LPR fake governments both vowed to obstruct all voting in their regions too. So the fact three Oblasts that constitutionally were entitled to vote, weren’t allowed to by Russia’s proxies, undermined the validity of the election of Poroshenko in those regions, despite the elections being free and fair across all other parts of Ukraine. Nonetheless, internationally, it is accepted that Poroshenko, and then Zelensky, were fairly elected. This would not be the case in a 2025 election being fought with Russia still occupying five Oblasts plus Crimea while still bombarding Ukraine’s civil infrastructure on a near-daily basis.

Putin and Trump are both pitching that Ukraine should hold fresh Presidential elections despite the legitimacy challenge being far bigger now than it was in 2014. 20% of Ukraine won’t be allowed to vote unless Russian occupiers are standing in the polling stations making sure they vote the right way. At least another 15% of Ukrainians are out of the country, and of them, the ones in Russia won’t be allowed to vote for anyone other than the pro-Russian candidate. So even if an election was held tomorrow, in Ukraine, it would have precisely zero credibility.

It’s been said that if Putin did leave office, there’s a risk his replacement would be far worse. There’s a precedent for that in Ukraine already - Yanukovych was a sonofabitch, but at least he wasn’t a Nazi enabler. Poroshenko, not Zelensky, is the one who not only normalised Azov, but presided over Azov’s political wing taking seats in the Rada.

Under Zelensky, in his first 2 years, those politicians lost their seats and Azov was being broken up. Azov would’ve likely been taken entirely out of commission by now, without any Russian help, if Putin hadn’t invaded. And the more barbaric Russia’s got, the more it’s turned Zelensky from a Russian speaking moderate into a hardened hawk. It’s now the case that maybe 10% of Ukrainians would want a more pro-Russian leader in Zelensky’s place, but over half of them would rather see someone far more hardline take over.

Forcing an election on Ukraine at this time is far more likely to return an heir to Bandera, than an heir to Yanukovych.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.